Introduction to Corpus Linguistics: Basic tools: Concordances John Corbett

This session Using concordance searches What is a concordancer? Interpreting concordance lines Dealing with large amounts of data The main source of the activities and examples for this session is Susan Hunston (2002) Corpora in Applied Linguistics (Cambridge: CUP) Chapter 3

What is a concordancer? A concordancer is… …a program that searches a corpus for a word or phrase and presents those expressions (or a sample of them) amidst a number of words that come before and after. The central word is sometimes called the node. Sometimes called a Key Word in Context (KWIC) program

Centrality versus Typicality What is the ‘central’ meaning of the word recipe? What are its ‘typical’ uses?

Centrality versus Typicality What is the ‘central’ meaning of the word recipe? From the Oxford Advanced Learners’ dictionary:

Using concordances (KWIC) Go to http://corpus.byu.edu and log in or register Choose CoCA Choose KWIC Click Sort/Limit Choose Alphabetical Search for ‘recipe’

Results shown alphabetically…

Frequent use in ‘recipe for X’

Central meaning: ‘how to cook something’ the perfect recipe for a homemade pasta a recipe for honey mustard poppyseed dressing his recipe for cocoa a recipe for “Pollo alla Vesuviana”

Metaphorical meanings: conditions necessary for something positive, or often negative to occur his recipe for an effective movie his second recipe for effective growth a new recipe for competitiveness a recipe for disaster a recipe for economic chaos the bank of credit and commerce international’s recipe for expansion a recipe for gridlock and stagnation her own recipe for weight loss

Centrality versus typicality Meanings that we recognise intuitively as being central to an expression might not be typical of its usage. That is, the culinary meanings of ‘recipe’ might be less common than the metaphorical meanings. When defining expressions, or teaching their use, then it is important to include information about central meanings and typical uses. Centrality/typicality can involve meanings of expressions or also their grammatical characteristics.

Dealing with lots of data … sifting John Sinclair suggests that when we are dealing with large amounts of concordance data, we do the following Look at the first 30 concordance lines and note patterns Look at the next 30 lines and note any new patterns Continue until no new patterns are evident Sinclair, J (1999) ‘A way with common words’ in H. Hasselgard and S. Oksefjell, eds Out of Corpora Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 157-179

Dealing with lots of data: hypothesis testing Hunston (2002: 52-6) suggests adapting Sinclair’s sifting technique. She suggests hypothesis-testing: Consider a small selection of concordance lines and look for patterns Do further searches to test your hypotheses and make new ones. Continue until you have no more new hypotheses to test.

Exploring the use of the word ‘suggestion’

First 30 results in CoCA

First 200 results: possible patterns Suggestion + 0 more frequent Suggestion + [that] Suggestion + from Suggestion + of Suggestion + with Suggestion + as to Suggestion + for Suggestion + to less frequent

suggestion + [with + NP]

Digging deeper: suggestion + to Use POS to search for suggestion + to + VERB

Some results….

Interpreting the results.. What is the normal function of the to + verb phrase? our well known suggestion to have a joint venture the suggestion to put Scott in charge Kathy’s Day 1 suggestion to push incremental sales a modest suggestion to read the Bible my suggestion to use the seat belt

Interpreting the results.. What is the normal function of the to + verb phrase? our well known suggestion to have a joint venture the suggestion to put Scott in charge Kathy’s Day 1 suggestion to push incremental sales a modest suggestion to read the Bible my suggestion to use the seat belt The to+VP explains the suggestions.

But what about these concordance lines? What is the meaning of the to + VP in these lines? He called me at Mr. Foster's suggestion to tell me that a -- an accounting firm had been engaged they used innuendo and suggestion to fan the flames of a tense racial environment

But what about these concordance lines? What is the meaning of the to + VP in these lines? He called me at Mr. Foster's suggestion to tell me that a -- an accounting firm had been engaged they used innuendo and suggestion to fan the flames of a tense racial environment Here the to + VP expresses the purpose of the suggestion.

What about the few examples with as to?

Spot the common pattern: as to + wh- + modal aux.

Conclusions Suggestion… Often appears as a stand-alone noun Often appears with a finite clause with that Sometimes appears with a non-finite clause beginning to, which may explain the suggestion or express its purpose Sometimes is followed by prepositions of/for Seldom is followed by the complex preposition as to. When it is, a wh- word + modal auxiliary vb often follow as to.

The value and limits of concordances Useful tool for manual analysis of words and phrases in context Sometimes more context than is available in a concordance line is necessary to establish a pattern.

Summing up… This session has looked at the following topics: The nature of concordance lines The difference between centrality of meaning and typicality of usage The process of sifting and hypothesis-testing in the exploration of lexis